I answered thmtngirl in the last post, didn’t realize you’d started a new one. She said her prescriptions were a little more expensive and husband thought it was ObamaCare. She asked for any info. These are my suggestions:

I’m on Medicare and have an advantage plan which is from the Medicare health care exchange. Do you have a supplement or an advantage plan? If you do, the change seems like it would be due to that plan, not Obamacare. If you have a policy, I would think you should have gotten a notification of any changes to your policy for 2014. Mine changed too by a small amount and it is totally due to my advantage plan. If you just have Medicare then I would have to do research becauseI don’t get anything direct from Medicare.

The benefits for seniors from ACA are quite positive. here’s some quick resources I found. There are probably better. I haven’t seen anything at all about prices for medications being higher, as a matter of fact, ACA is starting closing the donut hole, so total prescription costs should be cheaper.

Good morning, TME. Don’t know if you will see this, but thanks for response. The info I shared (about increases, etc.) is both our Medicare Part D supplemental plan. Husband got a notification in late fall that his monthly premium was increasing but we did not get any notification from my company. We use different companies mostly based on medications covered (and cost of those) in the plan(s). Thing is that because of his hiking, he is now off of nearly all medications he was on when he started w/Medicare/Part D, which is, of course, a great thing. I do not think these increases have anything to do w/ACA. I think it is just the company increasing the premium and co-pays which history shows has been the case “forever.” He hasn’t said anything this time, but know he is biting his tongue and wants to blame Obamacare. Months and months ago, we were having a discussion about Obamacare, healthcare, etc. and I pointed out to him that as long as we have FOR PROFIT health care in this country, costs will always be going up. I made that point because he loves to point out to me that “All companies go into business to make a profit/to make money.”

So busy with school. I am working on an essay for developmental psychology class that deals with Teen Violence. Decided I will narrow it about incarceration. At the same breath I’m working on math and English.

Before departing, would just like to reiterate something I mentioned a few weeks ago.

As all of you know, I’m adamantly opposed to #NEOCONSTERS, the #MIC and any continuation of America’s legacy of inciting and participating in perpetual war. President Obama is, beyond any doubt, striving to change that 53 year legacy which began in earnest when Ike left office in 1961.

In that context, what I have speculated is that from an Iranian perspective it would be one thing for Republicans to be demanding more sanctions and itching for war. The Iranians, along with any one else on this planet that is not brain dead, know that Republicans will support anything that President Obama does not.

So, it’s been my contention that the significant number of Dems urging further sanctions is actually very helpful to the President and Secretary Kerry. Reality is that even if the Senate passed such a bipartisan measure, it is highly unlikely the Senate would override the absolutely certain Presidential veto. But, what those Senate Dems are achieving is the creation of a palpable sense in Tehran that the only bulwark between them and war crazed Republicans (& their fellow Israeli NEOCONS) is, in_deed, President Obama.

The brilliance of the structure that President Obama and Secretary Kerry negotiated is it’s exquisitely brief interval to finalize an agreement. That brief interval coupled with the Iranians perceiving President Obama under enormous pressure is just what the non-hardliners in Tehran need in their tool belt as they counter the hardliners.

The vast majority of Iranians, Israelis, Americans and everyone else on the planet do not want another war – one that could trigger a conflagration throughout the Mid-East and beyond.

[Parenthetically – the irony is that in this case, if President Obama wanted to levy more sanctions and go to war he might actually have the one opportunity in his two terms to have overwhelming Republican support. Fortunately, that is not his agenda.]